Butter-Moth-Flies

On Friday night Clare hosted this months Inklings Cyberstamp. Her first challenge was a sketch challenge based on a poster for the movie The Shining, the second challenge was a colour challenge of black, white and orange. I was late to the party so I decided to speed things up by combining the challenges (after all, orange can be a bit scary... ). The colours would have been great for a Halloween card, but since that was past I was a little stuck for inspiration until I thought of all the Tiger Moths we have around at the moment. I used the emboss resist technique to create my moths with the Flight of the Butterfly set, so they may be a little confused as to what species they really are but I'm really happy with how they turned out. And yes, I actually used Only Orange!

All products by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Only Orange, Basic Black, Whisper White
Stamp Set: Flight of the Butterfly
Ink: VersaMark
Accessories: clear embossing powder, Basic Black marker, Scallop edge punch 1/16" circle punch, Pumpkin Pie grosgrain ribbon, Fashion District rub-ons, mini glue dots
Plus a mystery item from the up-coming Summer mini catalogue

Chocolate Reindeers

Above is a snippet from the card I just uploaded over at the Elite Challenges blog. When working on this card I decided early on that I wanted the reindeers to be the feature, and to help them stand out even more I would use the Chocolate glitter from the Supernova glitter set. Chocolate reindeers reminds me of Lindt chocolate, we usually include a pack for each of the girls amongst their Christmas stuff. And now that I have got you all thinking about chocolate, I'm off! I'll be back tomorrow with a very different card to the one I have shared tonight

PS my tweak of the double-ball ornament didn't turn out, and now that I have attempted it I have a feeling I may have even tried it last year! Oh well

Double-Ball Ornament

I'm very excited to let you all know that I have had a tutorial published! Beate asked me to provide a tutorial of the double-ball oraments I shared last year (second image on this post) for Splitcoast Stampers, and today it is up! They are very easy, and only use small pieces of DSP so it can even be made with scraps. Head over to Splitcoast for the full list of supplies as well as photo and videos of the tutorial. I've just thought of a tweak for these too, so I shall give that a go later and share with you too :)

Cardmaking Stamping & Papercraft Vol 15 No 6

I have four cards in the current issue of Australian Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft, Featuring the Kindred Spirits stamp set. I'm sharing one of the cards below, probably my fave for the little touch of dark outline around the bottom mistletoe image.
It can be tricky colouring such a large image with markers, as the first sections you coloured start to dry out by the time you have finished colouring the whole thing. I like to colour the skinny sections first as these hold the ink for longer, and then give a quick touch up to the wider areas (just a few dabs, doesn't have to be evenly coloured) just before stamping.

The issue will be in shops for another week or so, check it out to see the other cards and their product details.

(I've no idea what is happening with the CS&P page, two weeks ago it wasn't working at all and now it is showing an issue three years old!)

Merry Tree Trimmings

I haven't managed to get many of the Elite Challenges challenges completed in recent times, but here is one I finished before I went away (I just didn't get the photos editted until now). The snippet you see above is actually looking through a window punched into the front of the card. The bauble in the snippet was embossed using black embossing powder before I coloured inside it using a Pink Passion marker and my Kiwi Kiss marker. The other baubles on the card were embossed with clear powder before being coloured in with a Basic Black marker. For the full card and product details see it over at the Elite Challenges blog.

Dad's Birthday Card

Sorry I went all quiet again! I've been away for a week to catch up with my Dad for his 70th - above you can see the card I made him - and it's proved harder than I thought to get back into the swing of things after everything else that has been going on.

I kept Dad's card pretty plain and straight forward as he's a no-fuss kind of guy. Both papers I used come from the Windsor pack, I really like the colours in this but it was still the first time I had used it. The chipboard numbers were covered in the diagonal stripe paper (which I didn't get on exactly evenly despite my best efforts, but it's only noticeable if you really look... which you are all doing now!) attached with Tombow Mono Multi glue, the edges sanded and the I ran the side of my Chocolate Chip marker around the edges to give them definition.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: Old Olive, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip
Stamp Set: none
Ink: none
Accessories: Windsor DSP, 5/16" brads, On Board Simon Lower (retired), Chocolate Chip marker

Shaelea's Birthday Card

Yesterday was Shaelea's birthday, so for the last few days I have been working on her card, another castle one - this one being based on the castle in the latest Barbie movie (though I made this pinker for Shaelea). I took quite a few liberties with the back row, there was just so many darn turrets and little things I simplified that a lot but it's still quite effective.
Construction was much the same as Hogwarts, using textured cardstock and making one side of the concertina fold longer than the other to push the castle more upright. One thing I did differently for this one compared to the previous two (the other being the Beauty and the Beast castle) was to use the double rectangle punch for the battlements and to punch windows into the castle walls and cover them from behind... trying to attach all those fiddly little windows so they are straight is tricky! I did the Beauty and the Beast roses along the outside castle wall because I couldn't think of an easy way to do the fountains.
Here is the card folded up so you can see how the concertina folds stager. This one also fits in a 15cm square envelope.

All supplies by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock: textured Pink Pirouette, textured Regal Rose, Basic Gray, Certainly Celery, Creamy Caramel
Stamps: none
Inks: Pink Pirouette, Certainly Celery
Accessories: 1" circle punch, Word Window punch, horizontal slot punch, double rectangle punch, cutter kit, daubers, Certainly Celery marker, Regal Rose marker.